N.H. voters take wait-and-see approach on primaries

MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Plenty of voters in New Hampshire may be undecided, but don't call them indecisive.

Sharon Beaty, 56, came to a Mitt Romney house party in Holderness as "an independent looking at all the options" in New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation presidential primary. "I'm very hasty in a lot of things in my life, but in politics, I generally wait and see," she says. "I'm an impulse buyer, but I don't do that politically."

With less than two months to go, the Republican campaign in this state is intensifying. Romney and John McCain, who both spent last weekend stumping here, have made winning the Granite State central to their strategies. Rudy Giuliani has put new emphasis on competing here, and long shot Ron Paul is trying to appeal to anti-government sentiment with his libertarian views. All but Giuliani are advertising on television.

Most state polls show Romney with a significant lead. No one thinks that will last, including Romney. "It's going to get narrower and narrower," he says. Polls also show that voters have not made up their minds, and that voters who say they have picked a candidate may change their allegiance.

Nearly one-quarter of all likely voters don't know which primary they will vote in, according to a late October poll from Saint Anselm College's New Hampshire Institute of Politics. Voters not registered with a party can choose either party on the day of the primary, and there are a lot who are undeclared: more than 40% of the state's voters.

"It's like trying to nail Jell-o to a wall," said Mike Dupre, a Saint Anselm political scientist who conducted the poll. "It's that fluid."

Glenn Moir, 35, a human resources director, finds himself torn "50-50" between Giuliani and Romney, who is well known in New Hampshire from his stint as governor of neighboring Massachusetts. "Romney comes across more convincing, but Giuliani's record speaks for itself," he says. But Moir, who voted for Kerry in 2004, also finds Democratic hopeful Barack Obama appealing. Part of his dilemma is that he's unsure of what the United States should do in Iraq. "One day I think, stay the course, the next day I think, get out."

Tim Marshall voted for McCain in 2000 but says he won't this time.

"He's just jumped on the bandwagon with the Republican party machine," Marshall says, citing McCain's support of the Iraq war and President Bush's immigration bill. "I'm very disappointed in him."

This year Marshall, 55, is looking at Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton for economic reasons. "I've been laid off three times since 2000. Now I'm a temp worker, and when you're a temp, you feel like you're just disposable. So I'm looking for a candidate who's focusing on the middle class."

The Saint Anselm poll indicates that undeclared voters who have chosen a primary are more interested this year in the Democratic race, 41% to 19%. "This is where they feel the change can take place," says Dupre.

McCain points out that independent voters rushed to his campaign in 2000 in the last two days before the primary and helped him win here. "I'm confident that I can attract them as I did before," he said in an interview.

State GOP chairman Fergus Cullen says undeclared voters will be interested in whichever race is tighter. "They tune into one game, and if it turns into a blowout, they tune into a different game."

If Clinton looks like she's winning, he says, undeclared voters will flock to the GOP. "They want to be where the action is."

That's Beaty, who likes Romney's record of expanding health care in Massachusetts. "I feel a responsibility to help elect an electable Republican," she said at a Romney house party. "I'm afraid that Hillary has the whole thing sewed up."

Abby Rand, 49, a bed-and-breakfast proprietor in Hopkinton, liked Romney's proposal for an audit of government agencies to eliminate inefficiency. "I'm not committed, but I was impressed," she says. "My kids are both Ron Paul fans, so I've been investigating him."

She's not sure Paul could beat Clinton, and that's crucial, she says. "I'm not voting for a dead fish."

Negative TV ads, a staple of New Hampshire primaries, haven't hit TV yet, but as Romney said Monday, "I wouldn't rule it out."

When that happens, Cullen says, "once the artillery comes out, the (poll) numbers become much more solid. If someone is still with you after you've been attacked, you know they're solid," he says.